Introduction
The skin changes as a person ages, which might increase susceptibility to illness. Older skin is thinner, less elastic, and less greasy, which explains this. It is prone to bruising and can be slow to recover from cuts. Even though elderly folks frequently have skin conditions. Lifestyle, food, genes, and other personal habits (including smoking) all affect how quickly the skin ages.
Skin damage is mostly caused by sun exposure. Ultra-violet rays from the sun cause skin damage by breaking down the elastic tissue (elastin) in the skin, which results in skin wrinkling, blotchiness, stretching, and sometimes precancerous growths or skin cancer. Stress, gravity, daily face movement (smiling and frowning, for instance), obesity, and the loss of adipose tissue between skin and muscle are additional causes of skin aging. Stress, gravity, daily face movement (smiling and frowning, for instance), obesity, and the loss of adipose tissue between the skin and muscle are additional causes of skin aging.
What Is Hansen's Disease?
Leprosy, commonly referred to as Hansen's disease, is an infection brought on by the mycobacterium leprae, a slow-growing bacterium. It may impact the nose's mucosa, skin, eyes, and nerves. The condition can be treated with prompt diagnosis and treatment. People with Hansen's disease can work and maintain an active lifestyle during and after therapy. Leprosy was long thought to be a terrible illness that spread quickly, and that treatment was quite successful. Without treatment, the nerve damage, however, can cause blindness, paralysis, and the paralysis of the hands and feet. The skin, nerves, and mucous membranes (the soft, moist regions close to the body's openings) are the primary sites of symptoms.
The illness may result in skin symptoms like:
- A person with Hansen's disease will have a huge, discolored lesion on their chest.
- Skin discolorations that are typically flat may be numb and appear faded (lighter than the surrounding skin).
- The skin's nodules or growths.
- Scaly, rigid, or dry skin.
- Foot soles with no-pain ulcers.
- Painless lumps or swelling in the earlobes or on the face.
- Loss of eyelashes or eyebrows.
The following are signs of nerve damage:
- Skin-affected regions become numb.
- Weakness or paralysis of the muscles, particularly in the hands and feet.
- Enlarged nerves, particularly those in the sides of the neck, the elbow, and the knee.
- Blindness-causing eye conditions (when facial nerves are impacted).
The disease's symptoms in the mucous membranes include:
- A blocked nose.
- Nosebleeds.
Loss of sensation is possible because Hansen's disease damages the nerves. Burns and other wounds may go unreported when loss of feeling develops. Take particular care to prevent injuries to the afflicted regions of the body because the patient cannot experience the discomfort that can signal physical injury.
The symptoms of advanced leprosy, if untreated, might include:
- Hands and feet that are paralyzed and are disabled.
- Resorption-related shortening of the toes and fingers.
- Foot bottom ulcers that do not heal over time.
- Blindness.
- Loss of brow hair.
- Nasal deformity.
Treatment
Leprosy is a treatable condition. Three antibiotic medications that contain Dapsone, Rifampicin, and Clofazimine make up the presently advised treatment plan.
What Is Postherpetic Neuralgia?
The most frequent side effect of shingles is postherpetic neuralgia. It makes the skin and nerves hurt like hell. The agony persists even after the shingles, rash, and blisters have healed. Postherpetic neuralgia risk increases with age. People over 60 are primarily affected. Treatments can lessen symptoms, but there is no cure. Postherpetic neuralgia often gets better with time for most patients.
The virus that causes post-herpetic neuralgia inflames the nerves that run beneath the skin in the afflicted area. A medical word for pain brought on by inflammation or injury to the nerves is neuralgia. Postherpetic neuralgia's primary symptom is intermittent or constant nerve pain in a region of the skin that shingles have previously impacted. The discomfort could be constant or intermittent. It has been compared to searing, stabbing, shooting, hurting, throbbing, and electric shocks. The primary sign of post-herpetic neuralgia is intermittent or ongoing nerve pain in a shingles-affected skin region. The discomfort might be constant or intermittent. It can be compared to electric shocks, burning, stabbing, shooting, hurting, and throbbing.
Treatment:
1. Anticonvulsants: These drugs namely Carbamazepine, Gabapentin, and Pregabalin were created to manage seizures, can also aid in easing the discomfort associated with postherpetic neuralgia.
2. Tricyclic Antidepressants: It has been demonstrated that they may reduce postherpetic neuralgia pain. Amitriptyline, Desipramine, and Nortriptyline are a few of them.
What Is Scabies?
Scabies is an itchy, rashy parasitic infection brought on by microscopic mites that bury themselves beneath the skin to deposit their eggs. Skin sores and significant side effects include septicemia (a bloodstream infection), heart disease, and renal issues that can result from scabies. Creams or oral medicines are used for treatment. The classic symptom is a very itchy eruption that often affects the sides and webs of the fingers, wrists, axillae, areolae, and genitalia. Elderly individuals are a demographic that is particularly susceptible to this infection in industrialized nations.
Clinical Presentation:
Older individuals uniquely experience scabies. Patients who are elderly may have completely spared finger webs and may also have facial abnormalities. An allergic reaction of the delayed type to the mite, mite feces, and mite eggs causes severe pruritus connected with scabies. In people who have never had the illness, symptoms might appear between three and six weeks after the first infestation, but they can appear as soon as one day after infection. In many scabies-infected populations, there are a lot of tiny, erythematous, and frequently excoriated papules that can be seen. Burrows can be seen in many people, although older patients are more likely to have them on their foot soles. Due to the mechanical removal of mites caused by scratching, the itchiness brought on by scabies can assist in reducing the mite load. Elderly people with neuropathy, cognitive decline, or restricted mobility may have this process disrupted.
Treatment
Treatment of symptoms and consequences and treatment of close contacts are all necessary to manage scabies in the elderly and reduce transmission. Permethrin used locally, and Ivermectin, taken orally, make up the first line of treatment for classic scabies. Permethrin used topically has shown cure rates of more than 90 percent. From the top of the head to the soles of the feet, 5 percent Permethrin lotion should be applied liberally and left on for 8 to 14 hours. Although one application is typically curative, patients with verified illness are advised to use a second one 14 days later. Treatment should be given to the hairline, neck, scalp, temples, and forehead of senior individuals since there is a larger likelihood that the scalp may be affected.
Along with mite eradication, scabies symptoms and sequelae, including pruritus, secondary infection, and skin nodules, should also be treated. Antihistamines are often used to treat pruritus, which might linger for up to 4 weeks after successful therapy. First-generation H1-antihistamines, however, should only be taken sparingly or never in individuals 65 and older due to their deleterious effects on the central nervous system, which include sleepiness, lethargy, dizziness, poor thinking, and memory, agitation, and hallucinations.
Conclusion
A sequence of molecular changes over time causes a biological phenomenon called aging, characterized by increasing functional decrease. Due to the structural and physiological changes brought on by intrinsic and extrinsic aging, human skin, like all other organs, ages chronologically and is prone to skin conditions. Aging causes a loss in the skin's ability to function normally, particularly in terms of healing, immunological response, and its capability to repair DNA alterations. The dermo-epidermal junction flattens with age, the number of inter-digitations declines, and the number of melanocytes drops by 20 percent, giving the skin and hair a pale look. Skin aging frequently causes Hansen's disease, post-herpetic neuralgia, scabies, and other dermatoses. However, many dermatological disorders, such as skin cancer, can be deadly and cause serious morbidity and reduced quality of life.
